Language Styles and Politeness Strategies in Ola Rotimi's Our Husband Has Gone Mad Again

Literary discourse encompasses the language and conversations related to literature. Several studies have been conducted on literary discourse from linguistic and ideological perspectives with little attention paid to Ola Rotimi's OUR HUSBAND HAS GONE MAD AGAIN, especially from pragmatic and Stylistic perspectives. Therefore, this study investigated a pragma-stylistic analysis of Ola Rotimi's OUR HUSBAND HAS GONE MAD AGAIN with a view to identifying the language styles and politeness strategies deployed in the text. Martin Joos Language Style Approach in collaboration with Penelope Brown and Stephen Levinson's Politeness Theory served as theoretical framework for this study. Data comprising one text, two acts, seven scenes purposely extracted from the selected text of Ola Rotimi. The study employs qualitative methods to analyze the data. The secondary source of data collection was used. Data were subjected to pragmatic and Stylistic analyses. This study showed that language styles such as formal style and intimate style were used by Ola Rotimi to inform a wider audience, the domineering spirit of some ex-service men in Nigerian politics. The study found that formal style and intimate style were used to show how these ex-service men dominate the political landscape of post-independent era in Nigeria. The findings further projected that the major politeness strategies deployed in the data includes face threatening act and face-saving act. The study found that these politeness strategies were used to address social (marrital) and political violence in the data. Literary discourse is an important tool that can be employed in addressing social and political issues in Nigeria. Therefore, contributing to the understanding of how literary text can serve as a tool for social and political change. This necessitates further studies to account for social and political issues in other genres of literary texts by other Nigerian writers.